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Abstract
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The paper Dr. S. W. Weil Mitchell, read before the Acad emy of Natural Sciences, at Philadelphia, October idth, takes the ground that, " there appears to be no absolute anti dote to the virus of the rattlesnake."
If by an " absolute antidote " the Doctor means, a substance which when brought in contact with the poison shall so neu tralize it as to render it harmless, I must beg leave to differ from him. If he means " no substance which shall save the patient in every case," he certainly is correct. The ferri oxydum hydratum is an absolute antidote to arsenic if admin istered quickly and in sufficient quantities, forming as it does an insoluble arseniate of iron. Chalk is, in the same way, au antidote to oxalic acid, but the patients may be killed by these poisons; absorption having taken place to a great ex tent before the antidotes were administered. So with the rattlesnake. Iodine, as I shall endeavor to show, is a perfect antidote to it; still it may be that the patient may die from its effects, in consequence of the remedy not being used soon enough, or in sufficient quantities. In 1846, Dr. Whitmire first brought before the profession the value of Iodine as an antidote to the rattlesnake. In 1848 Dr. Harwood, through the W. W. Med. and Surg. Journal claims also to have used the remedy. But it was not until the publication of Prof. Daniel Brainard's experiments before the Academy of Sciences, that the true antidotal powers of iodine were estab lished. These experiments were with curare, and the virus of the rattlesnake. It may be objected, that curare is a veg etable and not an animal poison. Though this is the view Dunglison takes of it, naturalists are divided on the question; some claiming it to be of animal origin, and others of veget able. Be this as it may, those experiments fully demon strated the power of iodine over carare.
In the winter of 1856 I had the pleasure of witnessing the same series of experiments, by Dr. Brainard...
Language: en |